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Still haven't played the Survivor games. I might someday but ehhhh. I wanted to play the Raidou games but my PS3 died so oh well.

Also there are apocalypses at the end of the Persona games. P3 is pretty explicit with Nyx coming to end all life on Earth and I got the feeling the Fog in P4 was going to spread to the rest of the Earth. I can't remember for certain but I feel like that's stated somewhere.

But I see your overall point. The world is in a state of change and flux in SMT and you decide where the coin will land. That isn't really the case for Persona. You're mostly just making things right after someone screwed them up for a bit.

Interesting point about IVA, though. I really wish I could play those games but...bleh. Maybe Atlus will join Square and Namco and every other JRPG company and finally start porting trout to Steam.

Or maybe I'll just have to wait for SMT Switch and hope it's a big, important title.

I can acknowledge the Baby Boomers have hurt the US without blaming "adults." As I said, everyone from Sae to Shido is lumped together. Sae is in her 20s I believe and Shido was 52 I think it was. They are not even close to the same generation yet " all" adults are trout on, and the adults themselves agree with this.

Sae is hardly a saint in P5,Major P5 spoilers! I mean she emotionally blackmails her sister into a life she picked out for her and her Palace showed that she completely lost touch with true justice and instead got warped into someone who was more concern with winning and keeping her career than actually seeking true justice. Considering her position and the amount of grief she gives your party, I feel it's safe to lump her in with Shido who is also using their influence for selfish gain. Her crimes are not as bad as his, but if the events of the game did not transpire, she could have eventually become as bad as him.

I think you're just getting too hung up on the language used, despite the fact the game makes it obvious the real issue is with the system. I mean never listen to Ryuji, it's like the one cardinal rule in the game. Besides, if the battle was simply against the "adults" then the party would have never moved past just changing the hearts of every adult that looked at them funny in real life. Instead they start moving towards bigger and bigger targets that wind up actually having a positive effect well until....

Fair enough if that is your preference but Persona from 3 and onward has been about making cool anime friends. The plot is a secondary concern. That's probably why 4 is so much more popular than 3. 3 didn't give you nearly enough time with your buddies and instead focused a lot more on the plot. In games where your "bonds" and friendships are what ultimately save the world, I think showing those friendships should always be paramount.

I would agree that the heavier focus on the characters being buddy buddy is probably why it ended u being more popular than P3, but I would point out that P5's own surge of popularity despite having less focus on that aspect can also serve as a counterpoint to why it's not necessarily as much of a necessity to the franchise as believed.

To be honest, I disagree that the point of the series is "making anime friends", while it is a gameplay feature, I feel they often serve a larger narrative purpose. In P3, the point of the Social Link system ties in with the game's central themes of Memento Mori and what is the meaning of life if we're all going to die anyway?, that we should make the most of every day and that it's our bonds with others that give life meaning. So it serves a deeper narrative purpose. In P5, your confidants are exactly that, allies who also want to fight back against the system that screwed them and a partnership which frankly I felt really worked well with the whole outlaw mystique of the game. So here lies my issue with P4, what narrative purpose does the social links serve? The game's theme is facing yourself and searching for truth in a world where people believe in convenient lies. We could agree the theme is explored through the social links but it doesn't change the fact that the SL don't serve a greater narrative focus for the game in comparison to the game surrounding them. It's probably why the core cast often overshadows the other social links. I think it's something that has always bothered me about P4. In fact, I feel like P5 ended up correcting a lot of mistakes from P4.

Fun fact: I initially took "The Deal" because I couldn't careless about anybody or anything, probably because everyone did treat me like dirt so I saw no reason to care about any of them.

I didn't, but it had less to do with my companions, and more to do that taking it would have meant the ideal I was fighting for would have been for naught, and that brings me back to my point. That element of the plot wasn't about your bonds, it was about your end goal which is what the real focus of P5 was. Working to make the world a better place by changing the system. Taking the deal voids everything you had been doing up until that point.

I never did finish Innocent Sin but I don't see how it was particularly complicated with its evil principals and Nazis out of nowhere for no reason. (I mean from a writing perspective. There was absolutely no reason to make them Nazis) It all felt incredibly hokey and silly to me. Granted my memory of the game is not perfect and I'll never play it again because its gameplay is unforgivably terrible and probably the worst I've ever seen in a JRPG. But it felt like the game was going nowhere until the revelations about Maya and Jun. I certainly wasn't really interested in anything until then. So much smurfing padding. Plus a lot of important dialogue is to be found from randomly walking around and talking to people instead of proceeding with the plot. That irritated me.

I hear Eternal Punishment is better but bleh. It apparently has the same battle system so smurf that noise.

Fair enough if it wasn't your thing, that happens. As for EP, it works a lot better when you play IS. The games were originally one title but got split into two releases due to making deadlines. A major element of EP is the idea of Deja Vu and so you end up doing a lot of the same things you did in IS except it's all slightly off.

As for the wacky elements, the Nazis make sense due to many of the rumors in the game being based on real conspiracy theory nonsense. Hitler survived WWII and hid out across seas biding his time for a new war. Aliens are responsible for the pyramids and they'll come back to bring mankind into a new age. Even some Japanese urban legends get shout outs. In EP they keep this going but adult it up a bit with a NWO plot, people believing in some New Age health benefit, and even secret cabals that really run everything. It's a subtle but interesting twist. MegaTen, especially of the classic variety, is pretty kooky and weird in a hokey way, but I feel its part of its charm and it works as contrast for the darker elements the series usually brings up.

I heard that Tadashi actually came up with the idea of making 2 into two games about halfway through writing Innocent Sin. Still, while many people use this claim to say that it was intended to only be Innocent Sin at the start (those are mostly people who didn't like EP's ending compared to IS's ), pretty sure rewrites were made to the IS part to solidify the games as two halves of the same whole because there are way to many things in IS foreshadowing EP to not make it feel like this is intentional from a narrative standpoint and not just "hey let's just make two games and get twice as much cash!"

So I'm replaying Persona 2: Innocent Sin. Been involved in so many Person arguments lately and it just kind of inspired me. Unlike P5 which I feel I fully understood and just saw zero appeal, P2 is a game whose appeal I think is there but I just need to make another attempt to find it. Without frequently wandering off at various points and leaving the game sit for months, and also armed with some foreknowledge of what will happen later in the game, maybe things will be more interesting.

Note: I wrote this periodically over the course of a week as I played through the game. If you don't want to read through a load of random thoughts that have been mildly edited by me, just know that my decision to give IS another go was a good one. I now consider it the second best Persona game after 4. But I'll mark my overall thoughts at the end. In the meantime, maybe you'll enjoy reading the random thoughts of someone on the Internet.

Also there are some questions I have about the plot that I need clarification on.

1. Evil Principals are bad and dumb P4 often gets blasted for being simplistic yet it's the only Persona where the teachers and school faculty are all pretty great and not a single criminal in their midst.

2. So I always thought Lisa's "bye bye!" in battle was...bye bye, as in the English words. There is plenty of gratuitous English in this game. ("Nice-uh shot-uh!") but whaddya know, it's just more of her Cantonese. It's "baaibaai" which literally means the same thing as English's "bye bye." This game is educational.

3. Arsonist from ten years ago huh? Makes Maya clutch at her arm, huh? This game has the subtlety of that hammer that Tatsuya pulls from nowhere to break the clocks but hey, it's this kind of thing that made me think about replaying the game. I had no idea some random NPC name drops Tatsuya Sudo in the first dungeon. Also, to be fair, no Persona game in my experience has ever had any ability to be s subtle.

In a similar vain, a teacher mentions Lisa has the lowest English grades. Also you can run into Jun's mom at some location. Which I forget but the point is, this run, I made sure to stop by at practically every location after a story event to talk with party members and NPC's. I always wondered about this lady because she has a portrait and looks very distinctive and Shadow Maya was fixated on her. The fact she turned out to be Queen Aquarius and that's where she went was very satisfying. There's a lot of stuff like that in this game.

Also one of the best reason to visit all the bajillion stores is to listen to the music.

4. The Saga of the Trans Character Known as Weird Lady

Also there appears to be a trans character in one of the stores, named "Weird Lady" who maybe asked the Joker to make her a man because she was tired of being called butch. I'm not sure if that's progressive or not....

So the saga of Trans Weird Lady has gone from wanting to be a man to proving her manhood (literally) to various people to saying she became a man because being a woman was too hard as she constantly had to reject guys who asked her out, to being a Masquerade Member who wants to see things blow up. Huh. Character development?

5. Bootstraps Are Dumb

I reiterate my earlier position that P2's bootstraps bulltrout is not in any way good. "YOU GOTTA TRUST YOUR FRIENDS!" I mean, who WOULDN'T stand by and watch a "friend" get beaten down by four people while some maniac holds a girl hostage? Not doing anything is the mark of TRUE friendship!

Although, I didn't interfere. Not because I care about Eikichi's pride, more that I just don't care about Eikichi at all. Best thing he'll ever do for me is get the upgraded Persona 20 hours from now.

Now, as for Lisa's "Save Or Let Her Be" moment, it's a bit less clear-cut than Michelle's. The problem is the game presents the choice in a very biased light. They want you to think "will Lisa betray you to the Joker or not?" As such, standing by and watching means you trust her. She won't give into temptation because she cares about you all too much. HOWEVER we have already establishes Sasaki has a Persona and is in league with the Masquerade. Furthermore, the choices as written are: "Let's watch what happens" and "Let's go save her." Now, saving implies she's in dire danger. Given that she's alone with another Persona user who is on the bad guy's side, it's obvious what danger she is in. Also maybe this is just me but "let's watch what happens" sounds really wrong. You don't just watch when people you care about are in danger.

I'm actually really torn on this. I thought it be easy, I'd just go save her and that be the end of it. And of course I can't deny the gameplay element. I know saving her screws me out of a new Persona. The game is bribing me to "just watch." Oddly, this is making the opposite happen. I feel like it's buying me which is pushing me towards the other choice because my integrity and love for Lisa is worth more than that. And with the writing of that last sentence, I've made up my mind to save her.

Also en route to save Lisa an NPC said Sasaki is a predator. Well, that dispels any doubts or second thoughts I had.

6. Superheroes But Only In Other Worlds

You know, something that P3 and onward do is draw a sharp contrast between the normal kids in the regular world and the Persona-wielding superheroes in the various other worlds. But here, Eikichi mentions he used his Persona to beat up people and we see Persona-enhanced strength multiple times throughout the game. Do the Persona powers just not work the same in P4 or 5 at least? There might have been actual dialogue on this but I always got the feeling that the Investigation Team and Phantom Thieves were powerless most of the time. They couldn't just whip out their Personas and kick ass any old time they wished.

7. Everyone In Persona 2 Is smurfing Insane

One thing that always bugged me is that everyone in this game acts really weirdly. Not anime weird, just tweird. Like, Lisa's friends. "We just randomly became idols! Lisa, why aren't you joining in!"? Is everyone in the town supposed to be going insane because of the rumors or the Joker or what? It just bugs the hell ot of me that the only characters who act even vaguely normal are the main characters. And I guess maybe Tatsuya's brother. But every NPC you run into is just really smurfing strange. However I won't deny that, by the end, I kinda loved this crazy little town. Only Inaba was better characterized.

8. Gameplay Talk

You know, it's weird how Fusion Spells are both fun and absolutely terrible. Learning them is both obvious and not obvious. Take for instance the fact I just learned Stone Raise which is Fire > Earth > Wind. Literally the last fight I tried Earth > Wind > Fire just because I was hoping someone who made P2 had heard of the band. It's fun when you just stumble upon a new technique like that but it's also really dumb. Same with Persona Mutations. Okay so certain Fusion Spells make certain Personas evolve? You just have to have pure luck and stumble upon it.

Also I spent hours playing Blackjack so I could get the Orb thingy that lets you Analyze unknown Fusion Spells. It's...not as helpful as I thought. I am learning, though. For instance, I always thought Fusion Spells were just generic magic type + generic magic type. However I have learned some require a specific skill. Like Maya just learned Summon Spirit. Summon Spirit + Wind = Fusion Spell. This only makes the chances of actually learning most Fusion Spells even slimmer, though.

After finally getting Jun I had accumulated over a 1,000,000 Yen so I went and blew all of it getting 10,000 Coins so I could summon Charon.

Also I never in the entire game got a Priestess, Emperor, Empress or Justice card. That seems weird. I guess I suck but you really don't need any of those. For my endgame team I had Beezleboob for Eikichi, Tsukuyomi for Tatsuya, Isis for Jun and just their regular ultimates for Maya and Lisa. I had Charon and some other Persona too there just because why not. I had a Tretraja Card I found and had some other Perrsona learn so I could keep us safe from Hama/Mudo spammers.

I heard Eternal Punishment is a lot harder so I guess I better get good.

I managed to get a Persona with skills to stop random encounters and always escape from battles. I didn't have those last playthrough. These skills helped my second run's enjoyment considerably.

9. Law for Life, Yo

"Simply being given what you want is not real happiness!"

Yuck. Stop spouting Neutral gibberish, Lisa..

10. Maya Reminds Me of Shion Uzuki from Xenosaga

But that statement you can make to Maya, and everything else about her really, is making me think of Shion Uzuki from Xenosaga.

"Shion, who saw the death of her parents at a very young age and saw the death of a loved-one a few years ago, felt that her own life was always right next-door to death. Therefore, she came to possess the view of life&death where life, which "does not go beyond the state of not being dead", places a leg in death. However one wishes for life, death visits like an unavoidable fate. No matter how deeply one wished to escape death, no matter how deeply those around him also wanted not to die, death mercilessly visits.

Based on experience, the dark feeling of the nothingness of death was controlling Shion's life. Because of that very thing, as if turning her eyes away from death, Shion immersed herself in work to an abnormal degree. By turning her eyes away from death and hiding her head in the work that was before her eyes, she was able to forget the feeling of nothingness. It came to be that it gives her strength in a realistic meaning. Her blindly optimistic speech and conduct is something that stemmed from her feeling of nothingness. "

That last part especially really invokes Maya in my view.

10 Edit: Upon completing the game, Maya is substantially more well-adjusted than Shion and probably isn't just hiding her deep-seated neuroses behind a pleasant face. Although she, like Shion, did more or less follow her father's line of work and were probably unhealthily obsessed with that work.

11. .The Problem is Choice

I have no idea what effect some of my choices had on the game. Like, what happens if you ignore the obvious bomb targets and go somewhere else? Also I left Yukino with Fuji because that's the right thing to do. Let her mourn. I have no idea if this effects anything, I also said Lisa was my love because she is. She always be my bae.

Way back before I even played P2 somebody told me to be nice to Maya. I'm right after the room with the memory of her father and the options are "it's alright to cry" and "suck it up!" Earlier when she was freaking out because of the fire you could gently calm her down or slap her. Like, I really do car about Maya but even if i didn't, I wouldn't play some kind of monster who uses "tough love" at the least appropriate times possible. The fact there are even these options to trout on Maya make me curious about what would happen if you do that.

12. Nobody Likes Yukino?

Was listening to great P2 music on YT and someone commented that Yukino is never included in P2 fanart. Not that I was ever a huge fan of hers but she was actually in the group for most of the game .Jun is like that little girl who replaces Galuf in Final Fantasy V, right down to magically getting the departed character's powers. How the hell does tha teven work for Personas?!

12 Edit: Jun comes into his own in the final dungeon but is still by far the weakest character due to his extremely late addition.

13.. Rebellious Teenage Girls

But what's this about Lisa having sex with old guys and doing hard drugs? Nanako's "birthday" just happened and some people were talking about her coming back as a playable character in a future Persona. I jokingly said she smokes and gets a nose piercing because a teenage girl is gonna be crazy rebellious against a policeman father. Then I said that was maybe just an American stereotype. But this stuff Shadow Lisa said makes it sound like it might very well be a stereotype everywhere....

Also I don't hold it against Lisa at all, it just came out of left field.

14. Eikichi Is...Good?!

So Eikichi's dungeon sucked but the conclusion was way better than Lisa's. Like, it was literally perfect. I've never been a huge fan of the character but that ending was good storytelling and a very satisfying conclusion to his character. Really, the fact I have never been overly fond of him makes that ending stand out even more as good writing. It bugged me how he treated Miyabi way way earlier and I've been wondering where the hell she went to so this was just everything I could have wanted.

14 Edit: Eikichi and Lisa are totally the prototype for Junpei/Yukari or Yosuke/Chie, right down to the constant physical abuse. They pack that in the shrines and Xibalba. Lisa hits him about five times in those dungeons which means they packed all that into the last...5 hours of thee game or so. It's weird. Although Eikichi dodging it after you beat his dad is amazing.

Ending Thoughts:

So I can't remember how or when but I learned Maya died a while back. Also some people spoiled me on Nya being behind everything. Then again, that was part my own fault for expressing no interest in finishing this game. They had no reason to hold back giving me this information. Also in all the Persona arguments I've been embroiled in lately, the ending of P2 came up a lot. The result is I wasn't exactly blown away or that interested. The journey was a lot more fascinating than its destination, basically. I did lose my first time against Nya because he randomly killed most of my party and then Charmed the other person so... Otherwise the fight isn't that hard. Or maybe I was overleveled.

All that being said, and I intend to start playing EP later today(probably after posting this in fact), I'm not sure where the whole "P2 spits in the face of "the Power of Friendship solves everything" idea came from. Sure Maya died and her friends couldn't stop it but the ending shows that they all got back together even when they forgot everything.

Also was that ever actually Hitler or was it just Nya in disguise?

Favorites:

Favorite Protagonist: Lisa Silverman or Maya Amano.

It's one of these two fine ladies, not sure which. Lisa is of course always there for you right from the start. Her problems are pretty easy to relate to. I especially like how her relationship with her father matures which is, again, one of those things you only notice if you go out of your way to see it. Kind of annoying but that's how this game was designed. As for Maya, as the co-lead of this game (some argue she's the real main character and Tatsuya is sort of the Vaan of P2) she's charming, spunky and I was profoundly interested in where her relationship with her father was going. You get hints of this all the way at the start of the game with the Demon Negotiation option she has. But it's not really brought up or discussed until way later, like dozens of hours later. And even then it only really gets one scene. I still found it powerful. It helps her theme song is perfect no matter the mood they are going for. But yeah, even more than Lisa, Maya was the person I always wanted to protect.

Favorite Antagonist: King Leo/Tatsuya Sudo

Some people have said the Crawling Chaos is their fave Persona villainb ut I don't get it. He's basically Zemus. Who the hell likes Zemus? I don't care if he was teh root behind it all, he is in, at most, a handful of scenes and is never talked about other than that.

I like Sudo because he has presence in the story.

Maki: [about King Leo] It's a violent, wicked resonation unlike anything I've ever felt before. That power brings only misfortune, and it will consume as many lives as it can..."

He puts the fear of God into Maya, he jerks the heroes around for three dungeons, and he has a great sense of trolling. You get these two fancy riddles and our heroes are like "what could the next puzzle be?! What cryptic message has he left for us this time!!!!?" And it just says "I'm at the Sky Museum. Signed, King Leo."

Plus, there's a lot more to him than I initially realized when I first played the game. although I liked him even then. You just have to talk to Professor Ideal for the details as well as visit every goddammed shop to get random dialogue.

After the meeting with Ideal in the Kuzunoha Agency, Yukino will say in Rosa Candida:

"King is one of the people who's trying to make In Laqetti become reality, right? Is King the one who brought the book into the Masquerade...? Why would he do that...?"

And in Time Castle she says

"Everything that King was talking about was written in In Laqetti. It's almost as if his actions were motivated by what was written there from the very start."

Eikichi in French restaurant:

"So that In Laqetti book started out because of the voices that King heard?"

They also discuss King hearing voices in that same shop earlier on, after the Smile Hirasaka bevent.

Basically it seems to me that Sudo went insane and tried to validate his insanity. Ever heard the defense of "I'm not crazy, YOU'RE ALL THE ONES WHO ARE CRAZY!"? Well, in this "rumors become reality" world, that actually can work. Alls his delusions become fact and he's no longer the twisted and abused victim that he once was. Or so my reading of his psychology goes.

Also, related topic: They always treat her like a joke but is Professor Ideal a villain? She worked with Sudo, a guy whose only other activities seem to be burning trout, blowing trout up and being imprisoned or tortured. She called him the "channeler" presumably referring to the fact he heard voices. She interpreted those voices as aliens or Maiyans or something and wrote this book. Basically, she took advantage of a mentally unhealthy kid. Plus it's all her fault this Hitler bulltrout got started.

Same goes for Jun's father. They were both grown adults, teachers no less, who enabled a mentally damaged and physically abused child instead of, I dunno, getting him to some therapy?

My Top 10 Innocent Sin Songs:

Main Theme A Basically the "everything will be alright as long as we have each other" theme. It represents a lot of what I love about this game and indeed all of Persona.

"In Rakeshi" Nobody can agree how to spell this damned word. But seriously guys, I gotta warn you about these aliens. There was this one named Nyx who came to Earth and brought death and...I'M NOT CRAZY I TELL YA!

"Knights of the Holy Lance" This game DESPERATELY needed more than one boss theme, as evidenced by this being one of the best and most memorable tracks in the game. Still not sure why the lady Nazi you fight with Yukino says "Heil Sigfried!" but whatever. Song is awesome.

"Final Boss Theme" As I was saying, different boss music = very good and welcome. It also helps this is very fitting and intense. It blends notes of intimidating and inspiration and it really works.

Lisa's Theme How could she NOT be my favorite with a theme like this? From the moment she's introduced with this playing, it was love.

"Small Mountain" A really good theme considering it was one of the most boring areas in the game and with this game's dungeons, that's saying a lot. Still, it's very inspirational and gets me pumped to go save Fuji from the Nazis.

Congratulations on finishing the first half of an underrated title in the Persona series. I'll give you some insight on your commentary.

Originally Posted by Forsaken Lover

1. Evil Principals are bad and dumb P4 often gets blasted for being simplistic yet it's the only Persona where the teachers and school faculty are all pretty great and not a single criminal in their midst.

Part of this is an in-joke from P1. The principle and the homeroom teacher are both from Persona 1 and the guy was known for being an asshole, his name itself sounds similar to an actual Japanese demon which becomes his nickname. He only saves the school if you lie to the student asking if he is still alive, otherwise a statue will be erected in his name and the P1 cast will show up to stop the Nazi's instead.

2. So I always thought Lisa's "bye bye!" in battle was...bye bye, as in the English words. There is plenty of gratuitous English in this game. ("Nice-uh shot-uh!") but whaddya know, it's just more of her Cantonese. It's "baaibaai" which literally means the same thing as English's "bye bye." This game is educational.

Yeah, it always amazes me the amount of research they actually do for these games.

In a similar vain, a teacher mentions Lisa has the lowest English grades. Also you can run into Jun's mom at some location. Which I forget but the point is, this run, I made sure to stop by at practically every location after a story event to talk with party members and NPC's. I always wondered about this lady because she has a portrait and looks very distinctive and Shadow Maya was fixated on her. The fact she turned out to be Queen Aquarius and that's where she went was very satisfying. There's a lot of stuff like that in this game.

This is one of my favorite elements about the earlier entries. P1 does something similar concerning two missing classmates. It actually makes party banter worthwhile.

Also one of the best reason to visit all the bajillion stores is to listen to the music.

I miss the Satoshi Tadashi Pharmacy theme would come back. The fact Nanjou of all people keeps getting it stuck in his head is absolutely hilarious.

5. Bootstraps Are Dumb

I reiterate my earlier position that P2's bootstraps bulltrout is not in any way good. "YOU GOTTA TRUST YOUR FRIENDS!" I mean, who WOULDN'T stand by and watch a "friend" get beaten down by four people while some maniac holds a girl hostage? Not doing anything is the mark of TRUE friendship!

Although, I didn't interfere. Not because I care about Eikichi's pride, more that I just don't care about Eikichi at all. Best thing he'll ever do for me is get the upgraded Persona 20 hours from now.

Now, as for Lisa's "Save Or Let Her Be" moment, it's a bit less clear-cut than Michelle's. The problem is the game presents the choice in a very biased light. They want you to think "will Lisa betray you to the Joker or not?" As such, standing by and watching means you trust her. She won't give into temptation because she cares about you all too much. HOWEVER we have already establishes Sasaki has a Persona and is in league with the Masquerade. Furthermore, the choices as written are: "Let's watch what happens" and "Let's go save her." Now, saving implies she's in dire danger. Given that she's alone with another Persona user who is on the bad guy's side, it's obvious what danger she is in. Also maybe this is just me but "let's watch what happens" sounds really wrong. You don't just watch when people you care about are in danger.

I'm actually really torn on this. I thought it be easy, I'd just go save her and that be the end of it. And of course I can't deny the gameplay element. I know saving her screws me out of a new Persona. The game is bribing me to "just watch." Oddly, this is making the opposite happen. I feel like it's buying me which is pushing me towards the other choice because my integrity and love for Lisa is worth more than that. And with the writing of that last sentence, I've made up my mind to save her.

Also en route to save Lisa an NPC said Sasaki is a predator. Well, that dispels any doubts or second thoughts I had.

I think this just depends on how you feel about friendship. I tend to prefer autonomy in my friends so I am the type to force my friends to do stuff for themselves rather than always depend on me to help them. It kind of goes along with the old saying: "Feed a poor man a fish and he's fed for a day, teach him how to fish and he'll be fed for the rest of his days". Logically, letting the cast face their own fears on their own seems to me to be the one solution that will help them in the long run. Eikichi's probably made more sense to me since as an actual "thug" type character, it would be more harmful to cramp his style by coming to his rescue than letting him sort it out himself. To me, considering these moments are connected to obtaining advanced versions of the characters starting Personas, it makes sense that they could only be obtained by having the characters learn to grow by themselves.

6. Superheroes But Only In Other Worlds

You know, something that P3 and onward do is draw a sharp contrast between the normal kids in the regular world and the Persona-wielding superheroes in the various other worlds. But here, Eikichi mentions he used his Persona to beat up people and we see Persona-enhanced strength multiple times throughout the game. Do the Persona powers just not work the same in P4 or 5 at least? There might have been actual dialogue on this but I always got the feeling that the Investigation Team and Phantom Thieves were powerless most of the time. They couldn't just whip out their Personas and kick ass any old time they wished.

Yeah this is one of the bigger changes in the series besides how Personas are obtained. The early games make it obvious that you persona power can manifest in the real world even if not directly. One of the more amsuing ways is with the Rumormonger Toro. He was a minor character in P1 whom manifests Mara of all things as his Persona in the Snow Queen Quest, but since Mara is an avatar of desire, it's ability give Toro an interesting empathy that allows him to read people and makes him a great sales rep. Reiji on the otherhand, an actual party member from P1 is terrible at sales work due to the fact that his personas (Devil and Death Arcana) give him a very intimidating aura despite being a pretty friendly guy as long as you don't mention his brother...

The later games make it obvious the P4 and 5 casts can't manifest their powers unless they are in the TV World or Cognitive World. P3 is a bit weird about it and seems to hold onto the older series considering Chidori's Persona manifests in the real world and grants her unique abilities. Fuuka is hinted to have psychic powers as well, which are alluded to being a physical manifestation of her Persona ability. This only gets weird when you realize P3-5 all take place in the same universe and even weirder if you remember that P2:EP is alluded to be set in the same universe as well.

7. Everyone In Persona 2 Is smurfing Insane

One thing that always bugged me is that everyone in this game acts really weirdly. Not anime weird, just tweird. Like, Lisa's friends. "We just randomly became idols! Lisa, why aren't you joining in!"? Is everyone in the town supposed to be going insane because of the rumors or the Joker or what? It just bugs the hell ot of me that the only characters who act even vaguely normal are the main characters. And I guess maybe Tatsuya's brother. But every NPC you run into is just really smurfing strange. However I won't deny that, by the end, I kinda loved this crazy little town. Only Inaba was better characterized.

This is honestly one of the things I miss when playing through the later games. I mean the SL casts tend to be eccentric but I kind of miss the wacky shopkeepers and weird NPCs that P2 had. I mean there are some great NPCS in the later games as well but not quite as memorable as the nutjobs in this entry.

8. Gameplay Talk

You know, it's weird how Fusion Spells are both fun and absolutely terrible. Learning them is both obvious and not obvious. Take for instance the fact I just learned Stone Raise which is Fire > Earth > Wind. Literally the last fight I tried Earth > Wind > Fire just because I was hoping someone who made P2 had heard of the band. It's fun when you just stumble upon a new technique like that but it's also really dumb. Same with Persona Mutations. Okay so certain Fusion Spells make certain Personas evolve? You just have to have pure luck and stumble upon it.

Also I spent hours playing Blackjack so I could get the Orb thingy that lets you Analyze unknown Fusion Spells. It's...not as helpful as I thought. I am learning, though. For instance, I always thought Fusion Spells were just generic magic type + generic magic type. However I have learned some require a specific skill. Like Maya just learned Summon Spirit. Summon Spirit + Wind = Fusion Spell. This only makes the chances of actually learning most Fusion Spells even slimmer, though.

After finally getting Jun I had accumulated over a 1,000,000 Yen so I went and blew all of it getting 10,000 Coins so I could summon Charon.

Also I never in the entire game got a Priestess, Emperor, Empress or Justice card. That seems weird. I guess I suck but you really don't need any of those. For my endgame team I had Beezleboob for Eikichi, Tsukuyomi for Tatsuya, Isis for Jun and just their regular ultimates for Maya and Lisa. I had Charon and some other Persona too there just because why not. I had a Tretraja Card I found and had some other Perrsona learn so I could keep us safe from Hama/Mudo spammers.

I heard Eternal Punishment is a lot harder so I guess I better get good.

I managed to get a Persona with skills to stop random encounters and always escape from battles. I didn't have those last playthrough. These skills helped my second run's enjoyment considerably.

Well, summon spirit makes sense when you realize it combines with any oter elemental spell to summon a demon affiliated with the element. There are also fusion spells that require specific personas. There is one that requires all three Hindu Gods, the legendary Armegeddon Spell with Lucifer and Satan debut in this entry, and there is even one that requires you party to be equipped with the whole Devil Arcana.

I generally tell people to just use a guide to learn all of the fusion spells, just to save people from the headache of finding all of them. As for the mutation and unlcoking hidden skills, while the RNG factor can be annoying, thankfully it just requires the character to abuse fusion spells. I find that easiest way to get a specific mutation/unlock is to make sure the persona you want to do so comes last in the fusion spell because 9 out of ten times they are the ones that get the change.

9. Law for Life, Yo

"Simply being given what you want is not real happiness!"

Yuck. Stop spouting Neutral gibberish, Lisa..

Chaos is the only way baby, if you want something you have to take it.

10. Maya Reminds Me of Shion Uzuki from Xenosaga

But that statement you can make to Maya, and everything else about her really, is making me think of Shion Uzuki from Xenosaga.

"Shion, who saw the death of her parents at a very young age and saw the death of a loved-one a few years ago, felt that her own life was always right next-door to death. Therefore, she came to possess the view of life&death where life, which "does not go beyond the state of not being dead", places a leg in death. However one wishes for life, death visits like an unavoidable fate. No matter how deeply one wished to escape death, no matter how deeply those around him also wanted not to die, death mercilessly visits.

Based on experience, the dark feeling of the nothingness of death was controlling Shion's life. Because of that very thing, as if turning her eyes away from death, Shion immersed herself in work to an abnormal degree. By turning her eyes away from death and hiding her head in the work that was before her eyes, she was able to forget the feeling of nothingness. It came to be that it gives her strength in a realistic meaning. Her blindly optimistic speech and conduct is something that stemmed from her feeling of nothingness. "

That last part especially really invokes Maya in my view.

10 Edit: Upon completing the game, Maya is substantially more well-adjusted than Shion and probably isn't just hiding her deep-seated neuroses behind a pleasant face. Although she, like Shion, did more or less follow her father's line of work and were probably unhealthily obsessed with that work.

Yeah they definitely have similarities but as you noticed, Maya is far more well-adjusted about the whole thing. While both can be childish, I feel Maya is more likable since she doesn't have that same self-centered stubborness that made Shion kind of a pain to deal with.

11. .The Problem is Choice

I have no idea what effect some of my choices had on the game. Like, what happens if you ignore the obvious bomb targets and go somewhere else? Also I left Yukino with Fuji because that's the right thing to do. Let her mourn. I have no idea if this effects anything, I also said Lisa was my love because she is. She always be my bae.

Way back before I even played P2 somebody told me to be nice to Maya. I'm right after the room with the memory of her father and the options are "it's alright to cry" and "suck it up!" Earlier when she was freaking out because of the fire you could gently calm her down or slap her. Like, I really do car about Maya but even if i didn't, I wouldn't play some kind of monster who uses "tough love" at the least appropriate times possible. The fact there are even these options to trout on Maya make me curious about what would happen if you do that.

Going back to the "bootstrap" message of the game, telling Yukino to come with is actually the correct choice which unlocks her Ultimate Persona Durga. The idea here is that Fuji's death will be in vain if she stays to mourn because frankly the world is getting ready to end and she can mourn when the fighting is over. Doing this also saves Anna's life and Yukino's mind since the death of her Shadow Self mentally kills Yukino as well. Another change is that instead of fighting Anna and Shadow Yukino, you face off with more of the Last Battalion to save Anna. Also, if one has played Persona 1, you will know that next to Nanjo, Yukino is the ultimate "cruel to be kind" character in the franchise so telling her to suck it up kind of keeps her on track with who she really is.

As for Maya's things, if memory serves me correct, a lot of the choices will change some of the group talking abilities her and Tatsuya can have and I wouldn't be surprised if it might change some dialogue during her Shadow battle. Don't quote me on that, it's been awhile.

12. Nobody Likes Yukino?

Was listening to great P2 music on YT and someone commented that Yukino is never included in P2 fanart. Not that I was ever a huge fan of hers but she was actually in the group for most of the game .Jun is like that little girl who replaces Galuf in Final Fantasy V, right down to magically getting the departed character's powers. How the hell does tha teven work for Personas?!

Granted a good part of that might also be the fact she has always gotten the short end of the stick in the West. The scenario she was playable in for P1 was cut from the North American release and Innocent Sin was skipped in the West as well. Her role in Eternal Punishment is pretty small.

12 Edit: Jun comes into his own in the final dungeon but is still by far the weakest character due to his extremely late addition.

When you factor in that Jun is also Joker and a lot of the plot is trying to figure out why he has a bone to pick with you, I feel Jun has some pretty good characterization. You learn a lot more about his family situation in EP as well, same with Tatsuya.

13.. Rebellious Teenage Girls

But what's this about Lisa having sex with old guys and doing hard drugs? Nanako's "birthday" just happened and some people were talking about her coming back as a playable character in a future Persona. I jokingly said she smokes and gets a nose piercing because a teenage girl is gonna be crazy rebellious against a policeman father. Then I said that was maybe just an American stereotype. But this stuff Shadow Lisa said makes it sound like it might very well be a stereotype everywhere....

Also I don't hold it against Lisa at all, it just came out of left field.

I kind of feel like it was more shock value than anything, but the main message with her Shadow is her conflicted feelings about being different versus standing out. I've always liked Lisa's story arc, even when I had only read a transcript fo the games script back when IS was still Japan only.

14. Eikichi Is...Good?!

So Eikichi's dungeon sucked but the conclusion was way better than Lisa's. Like, it was literally perfect. I've never been a huge fan of the character but that ending was good storytelling and a very satisfying conclusion to his character. Really, the fact I have never been overly fond of him makes that ending stand out even more as good writing. It bugged me how he treated Miyabi way way earlier and I've been wondering where the hell she went to so this was just everything I could have wanted.

I love Eikichi's story with Miyabi and I feel the guy comes across like a one note character but has so many damn layers. Frankly I feel like he and Yukino got the best deals out of the EP world.

14 Edit: Eikichi and Lisa are totally the prototype for Junpei/Yukari or Yosuke/Chie, right down to the constant physical abuse. They pack that in the shrines and Xibalba. Lisa hits him about five times in those dungeons which means they packed all that into the last...5 hours of thee game or so. It's weird. Although Eikichi dodging it after you beat his dad is amazing.

Yes and no, technically Nanjo and Masao are the archetypes from Persona 1, but Lisa and Eikichi start the gender dynamic for it.

All that being said, and I intend to start playing EP later today(probably after posting this in fact), I'm not sure where the whole "P2 spits in the face of "the Power of Friendship solves everything" idea came from. Sure Maya died and her friends couldn't stop it but the ending shows that they all got back together even when they forgot everything.

That's not completely true, but once you start EP you'll understand. Technically the groups payment for restarting the world was not just their memories.

Also was that ever actually Hitler or was it just Nya in disguise?

He was Nyalarthotep all along, same with Jun's father since his real father died years before the plot began and the ghost in the Sevens Sister High clock tower is heavily implied to be him because you can find out that's where he committed suicide.

Favorites:

Favorite Protagonist: Lisa Silverman or Maya Amano.

It's one of these two fine ladies, not sure which. Lisa is of course always there for you right from the start. Her problems are pretty easy to relate to. I especially like how her relationship with her father matures which is, again, one of those things you only notice if you go out of your way to see it. Kind of annoying but that's how this game was designed. As for Maya, as the co-lead of this game (some argue she's the real main character and Tatsuya is sort of the Vaan of P2) she's charming, spunky and I was profoundly interested in where her relationship with her father was going. You get hints of this all the way at the start of the game with the Demon Negotiation option she has. But it's not really brought up or discussed until way later, like dozens of hours later. And even then it only really gets one scene. I still found it powerful. It helps her theme song is perfect no matter the mood they are going for. But yeah, even more than Lisa, Maya was the person I always wanted to protect.

Yeah I love the female chracters in P2, Ulala is one of my faves in EP. Maya is nice cause she carefully balances being this likable person that everyone loves without being so damn perfect you feel like she's a Canon Sue. Lisa is also a treat but I would be lying if I didn't say that a lot of that has to do with her relationship with Eikichi which always felt like an amsuing sibling relationship. Their nicknames for each other are hilarious. Interesting enough, when Nocturne was being developed, Maya and Lisa were used as testing models for the new engine along with Sid from the original Devil Summoner.

Another fun fact is that one of the new themes Fuuka can play in Tartarus for FES and P3P is actually a remix of Maya's Theme.

Favorite Antagonist: King Leo/Tatsuya Sudo

Some people have said the Crawling Chaos is their fave Persona villainb ut I don't get it. He's basically Zemus. Who the hell likes Zemus? I don't care if he was teh root behind it all, he is in, at most, a handful of scenes and is never talked about other than that.

I like Sudo because he has presence in the story.

Maki: [about King Leo] It's a violent, wicked resonation unlike anything I've ever felt before. That power brings only misfortune, and it will consume as many lives as it can..."

He puts the fear of God into Maya, he jerks the heroes around for three dungeons, and he has a great sense of trolling. You get these two fancy riddles and our heroes are like "what could the next puzzle be?! What cryptic message has he left for us this time!!!!?" And it just says "I'm at the Sky Museum. Signed, King Leo."

Basically it seems to me that Sudo went insane and tried to validate his insanity. Ever heard the defense of "I'm not crazy, YOU'RE ALL THE ONES WHO ARE CRAZY!"? Well, in this "rumors become reality" world, that actually can work. Alls his delusions become fact and he's no longer the twisted and abused victim that he once was. Or so my reading of his psychology goes.

Oh don't get me wrong Sudou is a great antagonist, though I love his role in EP a little better, but EP kind of seals the deal on Nyalrthotep. I mean you don't even know about his existence until near the end of the game but, in EP, you will learn fairly early he's behind everything. I mean he's actually the "voice" that Sudou here's and the game's retcon the fact that Nyalarthotep is what caused Kandori from P1 to turn evil as well while posing as his Persona. Nayalrthotep's presence is felt a lot more in EP since he doesn't really have to hide it anymore. He's the cause of a ll the problems in the first two entries, and as the only confirmed godlike being in the setting, some fans theorize that every villain in the sequels are simply different incarnations of him since he's the very physical embodiment of all of mankind's negative traits just like all of the future villains are and Nyalrthotep is a well known shapeshifting entity.

With that said, Sudou is pretty damn awesome and the most memorable of the Four Rulers of the Masked Circle. Still I can't help but feel like his story in EP is a lot more twisted and tragic.

Also, related topic: They always treat her like a joke but is Professor Ideal a villain? She worked with Sudo, a guy whose only other activities seem to be burning trout, blowing trout up and being imprisoned or tortured. She called him the "channeler" presumably referring to the fact he heard voices. She interpreted those voices as aliens or Maiyans or something and wrote this book. Basically, she took advantage of a mentally unhealthy kid. Plus it's all her fault this Hitler bulltrout got started.

Same goes for Jun's father. They were both grown adults, teachers no less, who enabled a mentally damaged and physically abused child instead of, I dunno, getting him to some therapy?

She's not evil, just someone who has spent her lie with strong beliefs that got her laughed out of every respectable intellectual circle. It doesn't surprise me that her wish to prove her theories right would make her an easy pawn for Nyalarthotep. As for her and Jun's father concerning Sudou's mental disorder, it was less them taking advantage of his mental health and more of them actually beleiving the voices were aliens, but again, it's heavily implied the voices Sudou were hearing was actually Nyalarthoteps. So they were all being manipualted by him in order for him to win "the bet".

I have heard about Nya being the villains of the later Persona games but I don't think that's the case if only because of real world reasons. The early Persona stuff is old and most fans don't know and don't care about it. To really involve the characters of the older games in the new ones would alienate a lot of people, especially fans in the West who, from what I know, are actually the majority of the people buying Persona games.

Also Nyx was an alien who predates mankind.

Also I played the first 20 minutes or so of Eternal Punishment just to see what was up.

So everything seems nice and familiar so far. Except..Professor Saeko is now Ms. Smith? Eh?

Also Maya has been promoted to main character which apparently entails having most of her dialogue removed. This will be kind of interesting and different seeing as I had a whole game of a very fleshed out character. I feel like I should try and replicate that. Then again, that is a Maya-Who-Never-Was now.... Hm.

Also I can't inspect the janitor's office to find ropes and candles and then muse about their...."uses."

Also on the topic of Yukino being happier, I think most people are better off in this new world 'cuz less death and destruction, at least at present.

As for the decision with her, the scene is very sad. Yukino is heartbroken, the music is depressing and even Tatsuya's face when you make the decision shows how weary and sad he is himself. I just couldn't look at that fact and take everything else happening into account and tell her "SUCK IT UP!" That's how I read that line.

The Persona games have a lot of moral judgments and they will happily choke you on all of them. SMT isn't too different from what I know. At least Nocturne was pretty even-handed and didn't really try to push anything on you. While TDE was preferred, it's also easily ignored.

I have heard about Nya being the villains of the later Persona games but I don't think that's the case if only because of real world reasons. The early Persona stuff is old and most fans don't know and don't care about it. To really involve the characters of the older games in the new ones would alienate a lot of people, especially fans in the West who, from what I know, are actually the majority of the people buying Persona games.

Well the director of P3-5 has come out and said that Philemon exists in those games as well. The Butterfly seen in all of the games are representations of him, so it stands to reason that Nyalarthotep would still exist as well. Considering most of the super natural enemies have the same origin as him, the theory stands to reason.

Also Nyx was an alien who predates mankind.

Alien is the wrong word here, maybe primordial concept of death would be better. Course this is the second attempt by her to end the world in the Persona series.

Also I played the first 20 minutes or so of Eternal Punishment just to see what was up.

So everything seems nice and familiar so far. Except..Professor Saeko is now Ms. Smith? Eh?

Blame this on the embarrassingly bad localization for Persona 1. Atlus tried to backtrack on it for P2 and retained all of the original names except for returning characters from P1 who still retain part of their bad English names given in that title. Nanjo is Nate, Eriko is Ellen, and Kandori still has that embarrassing Italian surname. Yukino survived because even in the original, they kept her as the token Asian for the game and let her keep her name surprisingly enough. The rest of the game largely holds true to the original though, so don't worry too much about things being lost in translation.

Also Maya has been promoted to main character which apparently entails having most of her dialogue removed. This will be kind of interesting and different seeing as I had a whole game of a very fleshed out character. I feel like I should try and replicate that. Then again, that is a Maya-Who-Never-Was now.... Hm.

Yeah, and Tatsuya actually talks. Most fans feel it was better for both of them in Innocent Sin when Tatsuya didn't talk and Maya could.

Also on the topic of Yukino being happier, I think most people are better off in this new world 'cuz less death and destruction, at least at present.

It's nicer is some ways, darker in others. Fujii and Jun's father are both still alive in this reality but it won;t take long before you see what I mean about this entry being a bit darker.

As for the decision with her, the scene is very sad. Yukino is heartbroken, the music is depressing and even Tatsuya's face when you make the decision shows how weary and sad he is himself. I just couldn't look at that fact and take everything else happening into account and tell her "SUCK IT UP!" That's how I read that line.

Fair enough, for me it was easy to tell her to move on but that's largely because mourning never made sense to me and I would like to think the dead would want us to stay more positive and not let their deaths drag the living down. Besides ANNA was running loose and Yukino was the only one who can get through to her.

The Persona games have a lot of moral judgments and they will happily choke you on all of them. SMT isn't too different from what I know. At least Nocturne was pretty even-handed and didn't really try to push anything on you. While TDE was preferred, it's also easily ignored.

Part of me likes to think that the "Cruel to be Kind" attitude in P2, besides simply being a different attitude from a different time frame, might be the team swinging the other way around after P1 made it obvious that doing the more emotional answer despite logic saying it's the wrong choice, is always the right choice in that game in order to get the Best Ending. Seriously, the best advise I can give people for P1 and the SEBEC arc is to always do the opposite of what Nanjo/Nate tells you to do. That will answer 90% of the moral choices needed to get on the Best Ending track.

Well the director of P3-5 has come out and said that Philemon exists in those games as well. The Butterfly seen in all of the games are representations of him, so it stands to reason that Nyalarthotep would still exist as well. Considering most of the super natural enemies have the same origin as him, the theory stands to reason.

Alien is the wrong word here, maybe primordial concept of death would be better. Course this is the second attempt by her to end the world in the Persona series.

I'm aware about Philemon but he's not actively doing anything anymore so why is Nyarly different?

And I'm like 99% certain Ryoji says Nyx is extraterrestrial. She's not from the planet Earth at all. There are apparently multiple alien life forms in SMT anyway. Some group called the Administrators was one told to me elsewhere.

Part of me likes to think that the "Cruel to be Kind" attitude in P2, besides simply being a different attitude from a different time frame, might be the team swinging the other way around after P1 made it obvious that doing the more emotional answer despite logic saying it's the wrong choice, is always the right choice in that game in order to get the Best Ending. Seriously, the best advise I can give people for P1 and the SEBEC arc is to always do the opposite of what Nanjo/Nate tells you to do. That will answer 90% of the moral choices needed to get on the Best Ending track.

I should maybe play P1 sometime. Even the old school fans don't seem to like it much in my experience. Their reverence is reserved for P2.

Well the director of P3-5 has come out and said that Philemon exists in those games as well. The Butterfly seen in all of the games are representations of him, so it stands to reason that Nyalarthotep would still exist as well. Considering most of the super natural enemies have the same origin as him, the theory stands to reason.

Alien is the wrong word here, maybe primordial concept of death would be better. Course this is the second attempt by her to end the world in the Persona series.

I'm aware about Philemon but he's not actively doing anything anymore so why is Nyarly different?

Philemon is still guiding the main protagonist, he's just taken a back seat to Igor to do the heavy lifting, yet he is still doing something. It wouldn't be really any different for Nyaralthotep to be doing the same thing. As I said, it's more of a logical conclusion that since they all have the same origin, they are likely all connected as one being.

And I'm like 99% certain Ryoji says Nyx is extraterrestrial. She's not from the planet Earth at all. There are apparently multiple alien life forms in SMT anyway. Some group called the Administrators was one told to me elsewhere.

I don't remember Ryuji saying she was an alien, primordial death yes, but not an alien, but looking over at the MegaTen Wiki, it's stated that Nyx is something like Lovecraft's elder gods, a being outside of time and space that somehow crashed into the moon and has been biding it's time before it can wake. So perhaps alien isn't too far off. Man that's as lame as the revelations made about the origins of the Angels from EVA in the supplemental materials.

As for other aliens in the series, they do exist certainly, though I'll mention that Devil Survivor (where the Administrators are from) is kind of an odd duck compared to the rest of the franchise. It''s a series that tries to combine the best parts of Persona and the mainline games with some rather weird results. I'm currently still perturbed with them over Tokyo Mirage Sessions.

I should maybe play P1 sometime. Even the old school fans don't seem to like it much in my experience. Their reverence is reserved for P2.

P1 is an experimental title, which is a nice way of saying it tries a lot of interesting ideas to make it different from mainline MegaTen in some not so fun ways. It's one of the goofier entries in the series, and there are some odd quirks about it.

Also I should mention I know Sudo is The Joker in EP.I'm not sure how big of a spoiler that is going into the game. I'm kinda hoping to keep things interesting and surprising so the climax feels more...climactic than IS did. Sudo being the Joker is all I know about EP.

And fair enough about IS Hitler always being Nyarly but I wonder about how deep that rabbit hole goes. Like, rumors make people go crazy and act differently but can they actually create all new life or is it just Nyarly? Were all the knights and Nazis just it, as well? The last group of Longinus Knights definitely seemed to know what was going on and made me think they might be Nya, too.

Also those weird Mayan Aliens who have your powers feel like we were being trolled. Again, another reason I'm wondering if rumors can actually create thinking lifeforms or if they are just it in different forms.

The EP Joker isn't played as a twist at all. If anytying, by the time thats stated in-game, the game pretty much assumes you've deduced as much already

I thought you hadn't played EP?

Thanks for the info, though.

Also I was looking at videos of the PSP version of Innocent Sin and the final boss fight with Nyarly gives a way different vibe from what I saw of it in the PSX version.

He basically sounds like Izanami, what with his starting quote of "It is a father's nature to be the ultimate obstacle to his child. Very well - reach for your future with all your strength." And when you Contact him he says "Try and surpass your father!"

He says roughly the same thing in the PSX version for Contacting but his initial battle dialogue is way different: "Fine... I'll play with you a little while longer as your fathers.... Give me everything you've got in your feeble attempts to cling to your future!"

The voice-acting is also a thing. In the PSP version, Laxus (I have no idea what the VA's name is, I just know his roles and one of them is Laxus from Fairy Tail) just sounds so dispassionate with none of the sneering contempt that I read all of Nyarly's lines with in my head.